A Very Special Mission in Feldspar
Present and accounted for:
Mace Blackstar, Human fighter (Mike D.)
Castor Bean, Human Bard (Steve B)
Kane, Human Monk; (Al G.)
Wilbered The Silent, Human Cleric of Saint Cuthbert (Chris L.)
Trygvie, Elf Magic User (Steve G.)
Cullen De Filtch, Human Rogue (Jason)
We were honored this night to have a return of one of our
original comrades, Chris L., home from school and in town for a
visit.
This night he played the part of Wilbered The Silent.
Last session ended with the players having plundered the bodies of
three human adventures whom they had found, quite dead, in the lair of
the giant spider. Whisper the halfling was dead and his body was
abandoned without ceremony by his comrades. After
having spent time plundering the bodies of the fallen strangers, the
heroes noticed that the webs in the tunnel that shielded them from the
ghouls were beginning to dissolve. Wilbered moved forward and as
the webs melted away he brandished his holy symbol and pronounced a
prayer to Cuthbert. The ghouls turned tail and fled back down the
tunnel from whence they had come.
Since the ghouls would doubtlessly return soon, the players went out of
the spider cave and into the abandoned cellar into which the spider had
fled. There were some broken barrels and piles of rubble there,
two closed doors and a flight of stairs leading up. The stairs
were littered with rubble and the players could see daylight filtering
in through the hole in the cieling which was half clogged with rubble
and ancient burned timbers. Trygvie related that he had
seen the spider flee up the stairs and out the hole.
Mace climbed the stairway and emerged inside a ruined building.
The roof had been burned off long ago and the interior was filled with
rubble, weeds, the remains of burned timbers, etc. Since they
were worried about the return of the ghouls, the players all climbed
the steps and emerged into daylight. The building stood in a
ruined fortress; a short distance away loomed a massive black structure
marked with the now familiar flaming eye in a triangle. Weeds
grew everywhere and the buildings and walls, other than the black
temple, were all very crumbled. The entire place had a stark,
abandoned look. Since they were bleeding, tired and in no mood
for a fight, the players consulted the map they had found
abandoned in the Black Temple. They saw that a path marked on the
map went north where it met up with a road that went East to the
Elfwood and west to a place marked "village." They elected to go
to the village.
The group spent most of two days travelling north up the path and slept
the night under the eaves of the Elfwood. The path did not appear
at all well used and was mostly overgrown with weeds. On about
noon the second day they reached a well travelled road running
east/west. They began to travel west and saw no one on the
road. After sundown they waited for the moon to come up and then
pressed on, hoping to find an inn before the night was over.
Around midnight they reached the town of Nibblott. Nibblott, it
turns out, was the town marked on the map. They went immeadiately
to the Stumble Inn ( in which Wilbered had stayed before, back in the
days when he was a member of the Fearless
Five) and collapsed in some beds.
The next morning, at the innkeepers insistance, they were ushered into
the bath house while the staff laundered their clothes. On their
way to the baths, they passed through the taproom and ran into their
old adventuring friend, the rogue Cullen
De Filtch. They had last seen Cullen at the breakup of the Goblin
Hunters.
Cullen immeadiately agreed to join up with them and go wherever fate
should lead them. Satisfied that they had found a suitable
replacement for Whisper, they proceeded to the baths and began to wash
the dried blood, sweat, dirt and other filth from their bodies.
They were relaxing in their hot baths when the Mage of Nibblott, Ogar
Thinwhistle, entered the bath
house with a dozen guardsmen dressed in the livery of the Baron of
Nibblott. This scene was very reminiscent of a similar time when
The Fearless Five were
arrested by the Baron's
soldiers. Ogar demanded their surrender and Mace flippantly
replied; "I'm sitting naked in a bathtub... does it look like I'm
resisting?" The guardsmen gathered up their belongings and the
heroes were dressed in blankets and paraded through the streets to the
Baron's Castle. They were ushered into an octangonal stone room
where Ogar accused them of being spies for "the evil empire of the
North!" When the players denied all knowledge of this, Ogar
pointed to the silver rings marked with the flaming eye that three of
the party members (Castor, Trygvie and Wilbered), wore. The
heroes explained that these were plunder from their slain enemies and
if the sight of them offended, they would take them off... but when
they tried to remove the rings, they could not. Powerful magic
seemed to hold them in place.
Trygvie held out his hand and said to Ogar, "Come, take my ring!"
Ogar smiled a wicked smile and fondled a dagger, saying, "I'll have to
take your finger as well..." but then thought better of it and sent a
servant to fetch the cleric from the Church of Saint Meinrad. The
Cleric used a series of spells to remove the rings and then Ogar and
his soldiers searched the belongings of the group. All of the
silver rings marked with an eye, a few scrolls of evil writings and a
medallion also marked with the fire eye, as well as a small stone that
apparently had some sort of a curse connected to it were removed from
their posession.
Ogar informed them that in exchange for having freed them from these
cursed items, they owed him (and the Baron) a favor. A minion of
the Baron, Squire Vizhian Jhad of Feldspar, had some trouble in his
village and needed help. Unfortunately, most of the Baron's
troops were occupied with the goblin problem up north. Ogar
wanted the players to go south to Feldspar and solve the problem,
whatever it was. Ogar did not have specifics on the problem, only
that some sort of creature was roaming the countryside and killing
animals and livestock. Having no real choice, the players agreed.
They spent two days in Nibblott, trading some of their bulky valuables
(coral bowls, candle sticks, etc.,) for cash and buying the more
portable wealth of gemstones with the cash. All of the group
other than Cullen bought horses in town as well as saddles, harness,
etc. Trygvie spent some time in his room at the at the Stumble
Inn casting the elaborate spell in whjich he summoned a familiar.
At the end of the day, the proud Trygvie emerged from his room with an
owl perched on his shoulder. Kane made a very generous sale of
his magic bastard sword
and a masterwork handaxe to the dwarf brothers Baffle, Toffle and
Waffle who ran the armory in town. Kane traded his magic trident
for a magic crossbow. Kane also donated one of the silver crowns
he had plundered in Marshville to the Church
of Saint Meinrad Fund for the Poor and Destitute and was given a
cure light wounds potion for his trouble. Hearing that healing
potions were availible, Kane ran to the church and bought out the
remaining stock (three of them).
The Mage Ogar also helped them identify a number of their plundered
items. The crossbow bolts that Wilbered had were +1 magic.
The scrolls that they had found included a Remove Curse, a Protection
from Undead and an arcane scroll of the Fireball, Dispel Magic and Hold Person (all at 8th
level). Wilbered kept the first two
scrolls and turned the arcane screoll over to Trygvie. The blue
bottles of liquid they had found in the Inn in marshville were potions
of of sleep poison. Since Wilbered thought the use of sleep
poison dishonorable and chaotic, he destroyed them.
After the characters had enjoyed two days R&R at the Stumble Inn
(at the Baron's expense!), Ogar Thinwhistle summoned them to the
castle. He introduced them to a halfling named Oliver Sacks and
an old, grizzeled veteran named Gumbar Plumb. Oliver Sacks was a
weaver from Feldspar and the head of the local craft guild there.
Gumbar Plumb was the serjeant of the guard of Feldspar and Squire
Vizhian Jhad's right hand man. The halfling and the old guardsman
were there to escort the heroes to Feldspar, which lay about one day's
travel to the south.
As they travelled south, the players quizzed Gumbar and Oliver for
information. Something, it turned out had been crushing livestock
and people at night... and this had started right around the time the
earthquakes began. The people seemed to have been killed by one
or two heavy blows but Gumbar didn't think it was a giant, although he
said they had had occassional trouble with giants wandering in from the
hills to the east from years past. "It couldn'ta been a giant,"
the old soldier stated, "because ANYBODY can track a giant and I didn't
find no giant tracks. Besides, a giant wouldn'ta gone to the
trouble of killing a cow or a man and not taken him for the
cookpot. Damn giants love human more than they love beef.
Wierd footprints I found, from big three toed feet, like something had
been hopping along."
Oliver Sacks added that an old farmer named Samuel had claimed to have
seen the beast as it killed one of his cows one night. The
players made a note to look up the farmer and see what he had to say.
The old soldier and the halfling weaver also stated that the
earthquakes and the attack of the strange monster had caused a panic in
town. The farmhands were fleeing the area and the farmers and
craftsmen couldn't get the help they needed to plant or harvest, make
soap, weave cloth, etc. To add to their troubles, recently some
outsiders had appeared in town, including one raving lunatic -- a
preacher of some sort -- named Skaed of Cuthbert. Both Gumbar and
Sacks said that Skaed claimed to be some sort of prophet and he had
gathered a small group of followers around him who seemed to enjoy
listening to his ravings. Finally, a young woman named Geia, who
was from the village and known to be a capable fighter, had gone
missing recently. She had last been seen with a stranger who
called himself Cirdis and a couple of mercenary scoundrels.
Gumbar told them that there were some old ruins about six miles east of
the village in the hills. Recently the earthquake had shook loose
the side of the hill, exposing an ancient tunnel or cave. Around
this time the attacks started.
That evening the heroes arrived in Feldspar,
a small and rather provincial town and made themselves at home in The
Red Hen Inn. They were brought over to the Squire's Mansion and
treated to a fine dinner. The squire was nice enough and
earnestly inquired as to "how soon" the players might be able to solve
"our little problem." He didn't seem to be a particularly bright
or effective ruler and it seemed clear that Gumbar Plumb did most of
the dangerous and dirty jobs while Sir Jhad stayed comfortable in his
fine mansion. Interestingly, Sir Jhad's coat of arms was a white
rooster on a red field.
They returned to the Inn and Mace and Trygvie pumped the innkeeper for
whatever information they could while Castor played a few songs for the
entertainment starved locals. Cullen slipped out the door and
into the night to scout around. The innkeeper confirmed all of
what they had learned from Sacks and Plumb. In addition, he
stated that he was very worried about Geia, the local warrior
woman. She had confided in the inkeeper that she didn't trust
that Cirdis character... but right before he and she dissapeared, she
seemed infatuated with him and never left his side. Trygvie and
Mace speculated that she might have been under some sort of
charm. The innkeeper said that Cirdis claimed to be a priest of
some kind but no one knew what god he worshipped. Cirdis had
apparently asked all sorts of questions around town about the old ruins
and the cave and seemed to take a macabre interest in the attacks of
the monster.
Mace asked where Samuel the farmer could be found and the Innkeeper
sent a servant to show them the way to the old farmer's house.
Outside it was dusk and the heroes failed to see the shadowy form of
Cullen as he slunk around. Samuel was an old codger who lived in
a rundown cottage on the edge of town. He proved to be quite
talkative and said many times that the creature that killed his cow
simply jumped on it and squashed it, then hopped stiffly away. He
claimed first that it was as big as a cart, then big as a wagon,
finally big as a barn --- clearly Samuel's story grew in the telling...
but when they questioned him closely, it became apparent that the old
farmer had been too afraid to do anything other than turn tail and run
when the monster attacked and never really got a clear look at
it. He said the last he saw of it, it was hopping off to the east.
Meanwhile, Cullen had been sneaking around the village. The sun
was going down and everyone seemed to be shutting up their houses and
locking away their livestock; obviously they were
afraid. One ramshackle house on the edge of town, however, seemed
lit up and he could here the sound of many voices from within. He
snuck over for a closer look and listen. Peeking in the window,
he saw a group of dirty peseants dressed in rags grouped around a
bearded man in a dirty robe who was leading them in some sort of a
prayer.
Mace, Castor, Trygvie, Kane and Wilbered asked the serving boy to take
them to the prophet Skaed they had heard so much about and the boy led
them to a tumbledown shed on the edge of town. They saw a
suspicious looking figure wearing a plumed mac-daddy hat lurking in the
shadows... they briefly considered opening fire on him with crossbows
and arrows but then decided it was only Cullen. Mace rapped on
the door and a mangy, bearded looking cleric in a dirty robe
answered. Almost immeadiately, the cleric Skaed launched into a
wild-eyed rant, shouting, "Beware the plague wrought by the warted
brown devil, the lord of filth, vomitting poisons upon the land!
The dead hear his call and all grows corrupt at his touch! Beware
the crapulent bathing revelers, the seekers of sin! Oh, the town
is cursed! A great cleansing is needed, " etc., etc., etc.
They managed to extract from Skaed that he had the gift of prophecy and
these visions came to him unbidden... but as Skaed launched into
another of his endless rants they turned around and went back to the
inn.
Before they went to bed, Trygvie sent his owl on a flight around the
village and asked him to report back what he had seen. Trygvie
reported that the farmers and villagers had all shut their doors and
locked their shutters up tight -- doubtless afraid of the mysterious
"monster."
The next morning they got up early and left the inn, leaving their
horses in the stables. A young page had been assigned by Gumbar
Plumb to show them the way to the ruins. The walked east down a
path for about two hours, passing fields, outlying farms, the ash pits
where the soapmakers made their lye, etc. Finally they reached a
broken ruin with stumps of pillars and collapsed walls in some rocky
hills. Nearby, just as described, was a collapsed hillside which
revealed a broken tunnel. They carefully checked the area for
footprints and found a few prints of booted feet going into the
tunnel.
Cullen desired to set a trap and wait for the beast to
come out. He tried to steal rope from his comrades and got a
piece of string from somewhere or another and rigged up a trip line
that would drop some rocks on the heads of anyone emerging from or
entering the tunnel.
Mace made a horrible suggestion concerning using the page boy as bait
to lure the monster out, but Kane and Wilbered refused to contemplate
such an action. The page boy took this opportunity to high tail
it back to the village.
After observing the tunnel for a while, Castor said, "Let's go
inside... I want to kill something before the day is through."
Despite Cullen's objections, Mace drew his glowing sword and in they
went.
The rough and crumbled tunnel went about thirty feet in. It was
finished in crubling plaster that still covered the tumbled blocks...
the few patches that remained showed frescoes of toads, humans wading
through a pool of some sort and humans bowing down before an altar with
a toad. The tunnel ended in a thirty foot square chamber bisected
by a pool of very dirty water that smelled like rot. An archway
across the pool was decorated with carvings of toads and led to a
tunnel that faded off into the dark.
The players used a quarterstaff to probe the water and discovered that
it was about three feet deep. Mace carefully waded across,
feeling his way with the qurterstaff, and the rest followed. The
water smelled bad and coated their legs in a slimy goo. Castor
checked himself for leeches and found none.
The archway led to a short hall that terminated in a large hexagonal
room with two doors. There was a circular amphitheatre
carved into the floor with a pit full of ashes in the center. A
broken cabinet stood to one side and a massive wooden statue of a toad,
with empty eye sockets, stood in the far corner. Cullen began to
sneak back and forth across the chamber. Kane headed down into
the amphitheatre while Castor went to check out the cabinet. The
cabinet was smashed and empty so Castor headed over to get a closer
look at the statue. Kane saw what looked like bones and other
items in the ashes so he used one of his kamas to dig through the
ash. Suddenly a big cloud of ash went up, choking him and the
toad statue sprang to life, knocking Castor over and wounding him as it
hopped forward into the amphitheatre and crashed into Kane.
The players sprang into action, attacking the statue from all
sides. Trygvie cast a Flaming
Sphere spell and they hammered at the beast from all
sides. After a particularly heavy blow from Mace, the statue fell
into pieces in and around the firepit. Trygvie mentioned having
seen a gleam of metal in the firepit and Castor began to dig through
the ash. He found some charred bones, that might have been the
bones of a gnome or a halfling, and an ancient looking dagger in a
battered bronze sheath. The dagger looked serviceable enough so
Castor drew it forth and looked closely at the blade. He saw the
word, "Neferon" engraved on the steel. As the Bard pronounced the
word, the blade was suddenly coated in frost. He said the word
again and the frost dissapeared. Satisfied, he sheathed the
dagger.
After a brief discussion, the players chose the southwest door.
The door was decorated with a small plate of bronze engraved with
letters in an unknown language. As Castor examined the plate, he
noticed a small latch on the side of it. Cullen checked it for
traps but failed to find any, so Castor undid the latch.
The bronze plate was hinged to swing open. Behind it,
Castor found a bit of paper stuffed in a hole. A short prayer of
some sort was written on the paper. "Tsathogga, Tsathogga, Lord
of Filth, We abase ourselves before you," Castor read aloud from the
paper and then put it in his pocket.
They then opened the door and saw a mid sized chamber filled with
collapsing shelves and cabinets. Rotting books and scrolls
spilled out of the shelves and cabinets. Interested, Wilbrered,
Cullen, Castor and Mace entered the chamber. Suddenly swarms of
tiny toads with small teeth, hundreds in number, appeared from thin air
and attacked Wilbered, Cullen and Mace. Castor was
unaffected. Wilbered and Mace fled from the chamber; as soon as
they crossed the threshold the biting toads dissapeared. Cullen
attempted to brush the toads from his body with a flaming torch but
they continued to bite. Castor was unaffected and strode forward
to the cabinet and began to search, soon finding a small statue of a
toad carved from a gemstone. The other players deduced that the
strange prayer from the note hidden in the door had protected the bard
and asked him to repeat the prayer. The bard refused, thinking it
would cause him to lose his protection. "Bathoggar, Bathoggar,
Lord of Filth, we abuse ourselves before you," chanted Kane. He
strode into the room and was immeadiately attacked by the toads.
The monk retreated again, bleeding from tiny bite wounds. By the
time they got the Bard to show them the scroll again, he had plundered
most of the room, finding a gold dagger and a number of gold coins
(some of which appeared to be fakes). What few scrolls and books
remained legible were mostly rotted recorded prayers of a cult
dedicated to a god named Tsathogga and appeared to have been of
no value.
Trygvie investigated and found a secret door on the northwest wall.
The adventure ended here for the night.
Experience:
Castor Bean (Steve B.) went
from 6815 to 6982(+167)
Trygvie (Steve G.) went from
8069 to 8236 (+167)
Mace (Mike D.)
went from 10,436 to 10,597
Wilbered (Chris L.) went
from
9430 to 9597 (+167)
Kane (Al G.) went from 9430
to 9597 (+167)
Cullen De Filtch (Jason R.) went from 3000 to 3167 (+167)